With many Indian consumers looking for non-Chinese phones to buy, Indian mobile handset brand Lava has launched a new made-in-India Android smartphone priced at Rs 7,777.
Interestingly, despite the ‘made in India’ branding, the Geekbench listing of the phone seems to suggest that it has built using a Chinese chipset made by Unisoc. Most phones in the market are built using American (Qualcomm), Taiwanese (MediaTek or MT) or Korean (Exynos) chipsets.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Many Indian consumers have been concerned about using phones that run on Chinese software.
Many Chinese brands use heavily modified versions of Android for operating their phones.
Government of India recently prohibited 59 China-made apps from the Indian market over worries that these apps could be used to launch cyber attacks against Indian defence, communication, power and other infrastructure installations.
While the government has taken action against Chinese-made applications, no action has yet been taken against China-made operating systems. Around 75% of the Android phones sold in India run on operating systems heavily modified by Chinese companies.
In contrast, most Indian companies tend to use either plain vanilla, uncustomized Android versions or modify them using their staff in India. However, a small minority also use Chinese-modified versions of Android as well.
LAVA Z66
In this case, said Lava, the smartphone runs on Stock Android OS (Android 10) and is free from pre-loaded bloatware.
In addition to being safer, this also ensures a smoother performance.
The other specifications of Lava Z66 include a 13MP + 5MP cameras, a 1.6 GHz octa-core processor, a 3950 mAh battery and a 6.08-inch HD+ notch display with a 2.5D curved screen & 19:9 aspect ratio. It also comes with a fingerprint scanner and a face-unlock feature that unlocks the phone in just 0.6 seconds.
The Lava Z66 also comes with 3GB of RAM and a storage capacity of 32GB, expandable up to 128GB.
The phone will be available on both Amazon and Flipkart as well as offline stores.
The Lava Z66 also flaunts dual sim support (4G+4G), Bluetooth V4.2, OTG support, Micro-USB, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Among the sensors incorporated are an accelerometer, an ambient light sensor and a proximity sensor.
Besides India, Lava International exports to many other markets.
The company claims to design its phones in India.
“With this ‘Design in India’ initiative, Lava is now the only Mobile handset company that makes truly ‘Made In India’ phones with complete control on design and manufacturing within the country,” it said.
The company has its manufacturing facilities and a repair factory in an approximately 300,000 square feet area in Noida and can produce 40 million phones per year.
